Major Cuthbert Fitzwilliams

Major Cuthbert Fitzwilliams M C

1875-1954

Stone sculptures that can still be found in gardens and at the roadside around the village of Greatford, near Bourne, are the result of an interesting hobby that preoccupied Major Cuthbert Fitzwilliams, owner of Greatford Hall who rebuilt it after the disastrous fire of 1922.

Cuthbert Collingwood Lloyd Fitzwilliams was the third son of Mr Charles H L Fitzwilliams of Cligwyn, Newcastle Emlyn, South Wales, and was educated at Clifton College and Göttingen University in Germany where he studied chemistry. After a short spell in London, he was sent to Burma to represent the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation where he was concerned with the development of the teak trade and was in charge of the operations in the forests, working with elephant herds.

From Burma, he traded with Java through Singapore and was a pioneer rubber planter in the Dutch East Indies. The rubber boom in 1908 gave great impetus to his work and many of the states in Java and Sumatra were started by him during those years. The office he established in Sourabaya became the centre of activities, both for rubber and the new search for oil which was then developing.

In Singapore, his relaxation was horse racing and he was a great rider and polo player. Mr John Burkinshaw was a leading solicitor in Singapore at that time and at his home there, and in England, the young Cuthbert Fitzwilliams was always welcome and when he returned home on leave in 1908, he married Burkinhsaw's only daughter, Hilda Wynnefred. The couple returned to Sourabaya where their first son, John Burkinshaw Lloyd Fitzwilliams, was born in 1909.

Telogoredjo United Plantations was the amalgamation of the rubber estates developed during this period and through his managing directorship of J A Wattie and Co Ltd, many other developments took place and the discovery of oil on his Biting Rubber Estates was a new venture. This was explored, using the experience of oil drilling acquired in the Caucasus.

On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Mr Fitzwilliams returned home and volunteered at once for service and was commissioned in the Royal Army Service Corps. In 1915, on the formation of the Welsh Guards, he applied for a transfer and was one of the original officers of the new regiment with Sir Francis Lloyd. He assisted in the formation of the Guards Machine Company and was in France from 1916 until 1918. He was severely wounded in 1916 and again in 1918 and received the Military Cross during an action at Givenchy. During his service in Europe, he was also awarded the Order of Leopold and the Croix de Guerre of Belgium.

It was three years before he was fit to return to the east but once there, his health did not stand up to the hot climate and he was unable to resume his active life. The London office of J A Wattie therefore became the centre of his business activities and it was at this time that he purchased Greatford Hall as a country residence. But in September 1922, it was burned to the ground in a fire during the night and the family and friends who were staying there at the time all had dramatic escapes.

The work of rebuilding the hall did not start for two years but the task was eventually undertaken and the new hall was built on the original foundations, using as much as possible of the old stonework. By 1928, the main parts of the hall were ready and the family moved back in while Major Fitzwilliams continued his business work in London and as a council member of the Rubber Growers' Association. It was at this time that he took up the hobby of stone carving to which he devoted much of his time. Examples of his work can still be seen in the gardens at Greatford and in others throughout the country.

He also had a reputation for garden design, his most famous project being the roof garden on top of Derry & Toms, the department store in Kensington High Street. The building was opened in 1933 and the roof garden had a fine view over London, embellished with 500 shrubs and trees, a flowing stream on which there were live flamingos, a Dutch and a Spanish garden.

His output also included a variety of designs, from mushrooms to elephants, but few of these survive, unlike his outsize crowns, made in 1937 to celebrate the coronation of King George VI.

These can still be seen, two in a front garden at Greatford and two more outside the depot of Eastern Farm Implements at Carlby on the main A6121 road to Stamford, one of which is pictured here. He also produced a sign for the village pub, the Hare and Hounds, that is still in situ on a side wall, and all manner of ornaments that were displayed around the village and were also used at the annual Chelsea Flower Show to advertise his craft as a creator of gardens.

Concrete crown at Careby

For many years he was a conspicuous figure in local life, serving as a churchwarden at the church of St Thomas A Becket, Greatford, and taking an active interest in the building with which his ancestors had been associated. He also studied the cultivation of watercress and became a pioneer in the methods of employing artesian well water. The result was that the water cress beds established at Greatford became so successful that the small estate employed as many workers as did the builder of the hall, John Fitzwilliam, or Fitzwilliams, in 1504, who later in the 16th century became Mayor of Calais when Calais was under English rule, and of whom Major Fitzwilliams claimed to be a descendant.

Major Fitzwilliams died at the Hall Cottage, close to Greatford Hall, on Friday 17th September 1954, aged 79. There was a private cremation service at Grimsby the following Tuesday attended by his widow and other family members, and at the same time a short service was held at Greatford church for estate employees conducted by the rector, the Rev R Burman.